Experts have a certain way of talking that literally commands respect. They say things like “Listen, Bill, you need to trust me on this. I’ve been doing this for fifteen years, and I know exactly what you need.” Novices, on the other hand, tend to speak in far less definite terms, and their limited grasp on the deeper nuances of their product and t

That’s why the Straight Line System is as much about becoming an expert listener as an expert talker. However, to truly become an expert listener, you first need to learn how to take immediate control of the sale. There’s simply no other way. The million-dollar question is how?

On the flip side, emotional certainty is based on a gut feeling that something must be good. Once it hits us, we feel a craving inside that simply must be fulfilled, even if there’s a heavy price to pay for fulfilling it. Unlike logical certainty, emotional certainty has to do with painting your prospect a picture of the future where they’ve bought

“Now, when you’re on the straight line—meaning, directly on it—that’s where you’re doing all the talking. And all these little arrows here: the reason they’re all pointing down the line, to the close”—I began tapping the tip of my marker on each arrow, as I continued speaking, starting with the very first arrow, just after the open, and moving quic

In both of these cases, however, whether your prospect is at a 7 or a 3, there are two important things to remember. First, your prospect’s feelings of certainty or uncertainty are less set in stone than if they were at the level to the right or the left of them. Secondly, their presence at either level does not directly translate into a better or

Now, when you finish the main body of your sales presentation, you’ve reached a point on the Straight Line where you are going to ask for the order for the first time and wait for a response—and then the back half of the sale begins, which gets triggered when the prospect hits you with the first objection. Alternatively, this is the point in the sa

We call these three core elements the Three Tens—with the context being a prospect’s current state of certainty on a scale from one to ten. For example, if a prospect is currently at a “ten” on the certainty scale, then it means he or she is in a state of absolute certainty at that moment. Conversely, if the prospect’s currently at a “one,” then th

You see, at the end of the day, not all prospects are created equal. There are some who are very tough to sell to; others who are very easy to sell to; and still others who are right in the middle, being neither tough nor easy. When you dig beneath the surface, it turns out that what separates all these potential buyers from one another is the sum

Now, obviously I’m taking a bit of poetic license here, but my point is spot-on: rather than having to stop at every new door or every fresh crack in the sidewalk or countless other occurrences, so your conscious mind can logic things out, your unconscious mind takes immediate action and saves your conscious mind the trouble. In fact, from your con